Every week, billions of hours are spent in front of screens by gamers worldwide. Video game effects have been studied by a few scientists. Discover how they impact behavior and the brain here.
Every week, billions of hours are spent in front of screens by gamers worldwide. Video game effects have been studied by a few scientists. Discover how they impact behavior and the brain here.
Grand Theft Auto V, Battlefield 1, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare were the top three best-selling video games in 2016. First-person shooter and action-adventure games are the two most popular game genres, making up 27.5 and 22.5 percent of total sales, respectively. These games belong to these genres. Action and first-person shooter games are frequently accused of inciting violence, inciting anger, and creating addictions.
Scientific consensus on the relationship between violent video games and violence has not been reached in decades of research. Researchers have not been able to establish a direct connection between violent behavior in real life and playing video games.
Video games and alterations in the brain
However, an increasing amount of research indicates that playing video games can have an impact on the brain and even alter various brain regions.
To find out how video games affect our brains and actions, scientists have compiled and analyzed data from 116 scientific investigations. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience reported the review’s conclusions.
Games have occasionally been praised or maligned, frequently without any concrete evidence to support those opinions. Furthermore, since gaming is a popular pastime, everyone appears to have strong feelings about it, according to the review’s original author, Marc Palaus.
Palaus and colleagues set out to see if any patterns surfaced in the body of studies about the effects of video games on the composition and function of the brain. Out of all the assessed research, 100 examined changes in brain behavior and functionality, and 22 examined anatomical alterations in the brain. The studies’ findings show that playing video games alters both the structure and function of our brains.
For instance, playing video games is known to impair focus. Video game players exhibit improvements in several types of attention, such as sustained attention and selective attention, according to the research included in the review. Moreover, gamers’ attention-related brain regions are more effective than those of non-gamers’, and they require less activation to maintain focus on difficult activities.
Are games that train the brain beneficial?
Advertisements claiming brain training games will improve brain function should be taken with a grain of salt, according to a group of Florida State University experts. They have stated that these statements are not supported by science.
“Our results, along with those of other studies, demonstrate that there is minimal proof that these kinds of games can meaningfully enhance your life,” says Wally Boot, an associate professor of psychology and authority on age-related cognitive loss.